RIPPER STREET Episode 1 - "I Need Light!" Written by Richard Warlow YELLOW AMENDS 10/04/2012 (c) Tiger Aspect & Lookout Point 2012 Episode One - YELLOW AMENDS - 10/04/12 1. 1/1 EXT. LEMAN STREET - EVENING 1/1 The last rays of a spring sun bounce off the decaying sandstone spire of Christchurch, Spitalfields. And bounce back again to the heavens. Where they belong. Because they don’t belong where we’re going... Down here. Leman Street. The axis of our world. The unholy chaos of it. Naptha lights being lit for the night, flares bouncing off the glass windows of horse-drawn omnibuses. Kids - untamed, running wild. Drunks hanging off tarts. A wild mass of humanity. And a dateline: APRIL 1889. EAST LONDON. 1/2 EXT. COMMERCIAL STREET / MILLERS COURT - EVENING 1/2 TIGHT on the purple, veined face of this TOUR GUIDE. A man in his early 50s, attempting gentility -- GUIDE Ladies. Gentlemen. Be sure to look down as keenly as you would up. Mr. Gladstone himself - only last week - found himself fitted for new boots. And he laughs unpleasantly. Turns away into a small alleyway as a group of perhaps 15 WELL-TO-DO MEN AND WOMEN follow on. All obey the instruction to avoid the various forms of shit and matter on the cobbles beneath them. GUIDE (CONT’D) Miller’s Court. Five months’ past - the scene of the worst of them. The worst and - please God - the last. Mary Jane Kelly. What the man Jack did to her... well, we shall not say. The MEN and WOMEN gawk - a visceral chill running through them. Behind them another group building up. LOCALS, themselves gawking at the fine clothes and hats of the tour group. Among them - a number of SMALL BOYS. GUIDE (CONT’D) But let us not dwell. The GUIDE moving on again, turning through a narrow archway. Above and around them various lodging houses. From their windows, several TARTS look out. Much laughter as a gap- toothed HAG lifts her skirts for a young CHURCHMAN. GUIDE (CONT’D) Rents here are paid by the day. I believe that is all you need know. Episode One - YELLOW AMENDS - 10/04/12 2. Pick out - A BOY PICKPOCKET, perhaps 10, catching the eye of the GUIDE. Collusion here. The barest of nods exchanged as the BOY makes his move toward a particular COUPLE. In a footstep, he’s relieved the entirely innocent GENTLEMAN of his wallet. GUIDE (CONT’D) (all outrage) I say! You, boy! And in a deft step or two, the GUIDE lays a meaty fist on the collar of the escaping boy, takes back the wallet in triumph. Holds it aloft. GUIDE (CONT’D) Gentlemen. Please. Vigilance is your only guardian on these - mean and wicked pathways. The BOY and the GUIDE - another barely visible moment of complicity as the child stamps on a foot -- GUIDE (CONT’D) (all theatre) Wretch! Ruffian! But the BOY - a smile on his face - is gone. 1/3 EXT. FOLGATE - CONTINUOUS 1/3 Stay with the BOY as he runs. Fast, agile, a left, a right. And then he careers to a halt. Sudden, real fear on his face. Stood above him -- A man. All we see - his looming black GREATCOAT. And the DEAD BODY at his feet. What was once a young woman, wrapped in drapes, her throat cut, her face sliced, disfigured. The GREATCOAT - disturbed from his work perhaps - advancing on the appalled child as -- GUIDE (O.S.) ... the young of this parish know little else but thuggery... The grateful BOY - his skin surely saved by this interruption, taking off and away. The GREATCOAT no choice but to scarper too. And here is the TOUR GROUP again, turning blithely into the alleyway -- GUIDE (CONT’D) ... how best to raise them up from such iniquity? That is a matter for you good people, of course... Episode One - YELLOW AMENDS - 10/04/12 3. But he has not seen what lies beneath him. That privilege belongs to an OLDER WOMAN. Her utter disgust at the profane sight of the body, and she SCREAMS. The GUIDE - seeing what the WOMAN sees -- GUIDE (CONT’D) Black shit and buggery. (then; bellowing) Murder! Murder! 1/4 TITLES 1/4 Those screams and bellows mixing into music. Urgent, orchestral, onward-moving. And images - archive photographs, drawings, press-cuttings - of serious, whiskered, hard-looking POLICEMEN about their business. They clobber FELONS, hold back MOBS, drink outside pubs. And they are all gathered now about the imposing Victorian frontage of the Leman Street Headquarters of H Division. Over which, letters form now. The legend: RIPPER STREET. 1/5 EXT. STREETS - NIGHT 1/5 A YOUNG MAN (HOBBS, 19) - a police constable in uniform. And he is sprinting across wet dark cobbles. Coated in sweat, his chest heaves, at the limits of his endurance. And his face - almost a boy’s face - is the picture of fear and anxiety. Still he runs, keening with exertion. Clattering around a corner now. Sees what he’s looking for: 3 other COPPERS in uniform, gathered, hidden in an alleyway about a Black Maria (police-wagon). HOBBS - almost collapsing into the arms of an older COPPER -- HOBBS (can barely speak) The Inspector... Must... see him... COPPER dismisses this notion with a laugh -- COPPER 1 Show yourself in there - he’ll have you bounced and flushing sewerage by morning. HOBBS won’t listen though. Just hands his helmet across and strips rapidly to undershirt and trousers. Episode One - YELLOW AMENDS - 10/04/12 4. A look for the COPPER and he’s striding away, disappearing into the darkness... 1/6 INT. DOCKSIDE WAREHOUSE - NIGHT 1/6 A FIST strikes out toward us. And a man’s nose SPLINTERS beneath it. The atavistic roar of a crowd greets us as two BARE-KNUCKLE FIGHTERS in a makeshift ring withdraw and circle each other. One of them - BENNET DRAKE (early 40s), grins for his opponent. Tight on his fist as he inspects it. Withdraws a fragment of bone that’s lodged in the fleshy webbing. Tosses it back to his OPPONENT -- DRAKE Yours, shitspade. And he launches another left right combination. Enough for his OPPONENT to seek time out. He deliberately drops to a knee. Check DRAKE out - a huge bear of a man. A couple of TATTOOS on his bicep: Sergeants stripes; and a snake coiled about it, eating its own tail. Boos ring out. SECONDS move in to their men, soap and water them. An UMPIRE jumps in. Moves to the centre of the ring and with a piece of chalk draws a yard length’s square. A number 3 beside it. THE CROWD - booming out a count. Thirty downwards. Take them all in. A seething, bawling maelstrom. All creeds, all classes. Stevedores and traders; a few blacks; Lascars, Chinamen, Micks. And the Upper Crust too, easily spotted in their evening dress. All as one in their blood lust -- CROWD ...27, 26, 25.... Find HOBBS now. Pushing through, his eyes desperately scanning them all, and finding who he seeks now. This man, stood the opposite side of the warehouse -- Flinty, piercing eyes, handsomely moustached. This is REID (late 30s), and he’s not counting. He’s lent against a pillar, conferring and drinking with another man - JOSEPH SMEATON (40s), wily, weasel eyes. Both have a dolled-up TART draped around them. SMEATON - watching the boxer DRAKE. Waiting for the count - and despite his heaviness - he dances nimbly from foot to foot. SMEATON (above the clamour) He’s tasty alright. (MORE) Episode One - YELLOW AMENDS - 10/04/12 5. SMEATON (cont'd) (beat) Where d’you find him? REID I looked. Wasn’t hard. REID - pulling his TART closer, a hand beneath her bustle -- REID (CONT’D) Fighters; whores... flesh is what you seek, there’s no shortage in these parts. SMEATON grins for that. Likes REID’S style, as -- CROWD ... 4, 3, 2, 1 ... And another almighty roar as the two fighters move to the edge of that chalk square and are joined again. DRAKE - easy, dancing about his quarry, more wounding jabs lashing out. SMEATON (of DRAKE) He’s no shame, then? Does as he’s bid? REID Money’s right, he’ll give you his sister and his mother too. Which is the right answer. SMEATON smiles - until he finds himself jostled, his drink spilt. He reacts, quick to violence, an ugly shiv in his hand, held now in the face of HOBBS. HOBBS - it was a gambit, but he wasn’t expecting this. He holds his hand up -- SMEATON Streak of piss - I’ve gutted younger for less. REID - his expression inscrutable, his eyes meeting HOBBS’. And he acts -- REID (to SMEATON) Let me. A rabbit punch to HOBBS’ throat. The lad gags, collapses to his knees. SMEATON - his regard for this man growing ever more. Watches as REID catches HOBBS, drags him to the wall, pins him to it. REID - in the boy’s face - an inscrutable look. Episode One - YELLOW AMENDS - 10/04/12 6. REID (CONT’D) (vicious; whispered) This had better be good. HOBBS - a desperate nod, managing to get the words out -- HOBBS They’ve found a tart. Up on Folgate. (a beat) She’s been ripped, Inspector. REID - his eyes, the shock of this, the worst possible news. 1/7 EXT. STREETS - NIGHT 1/7 The Black Maria - flying through nighttime streets. Inside - those three uniformed COPPERS. And with them - REID. Urgently addressing his men as they travel -- REID Like as not, word will have spread. We find a mob there - you follow the Sergeant.